Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live (51 page)

Brandon was very involved in getting feedback to Lorne on the show and felt that it was struggling, and I do remember him saying, “It’s over.” I think many of us would, in our years as executives at broadcast networks, be in a meeting, focus on problems, sometimes lose sight of what had been accomplished and what we had. And that kind of piling on happens, and you push away from the table and you go, “That’s it, goddammit. We’re shutting it down. I’ll be the decision maker.” And God bless Brandon — in the light of day I think he woke up and went, “Oh God, am I really going to face Lorne today and tell this human being who I love and care about and believe in that I’m pulling the plug on him and the show?”

And that’s when that cold executive maneuver that you said the day before — “I’m going to take control and take action” — that’s when you finally realize, you know what, maybe I’ll just wait a little bit. And part of that is not wanting to be confrontative, and also in the light of day, forgetting the posturing for a moment, saying, “You know what? It may not be perfect. What is? But does that mean we throw it out — and what do we have to replace it with?” One of the questions you have to ask yourself is, “All right, kill it, but what’s your plan?” And sometimes faced with “what’s your plan,” you look at it in a different light.

ROBERT SMIGEL:

By the end of the season, the show was still a disaster. I had this idea to do a cliff-hanger like
Dallas
— one of those obnoxious cliff-hangers that really were new at the time — and I wrote one where Billy Martin sets the studio on fire and Lorne’s in there and he runs out and he just saves Lovitz, which infuriated a few people in the cast. And he leaves all these other people and it’s like, “Who will survive?” And then the whole credit crawl, everybody’s name had a question mark after it.

Once more
Saturday Night Live
had teetered on the brink and once more the program was spared the unseemly ignominy of cancellation. Now it was up to Lorne Michaels to reinvent the show one more time, and though he still disliked firing people, one of his first moves had to be to throw the “new” cast out and recruit a newer new cast, one that could help
SNL
win back America’s heart. Michaels had learned the lesson of casting people for their talent rather than for their names, and he set about rebuilding the show in much the way he had first constructed it — he and his staff searching comedy clubs and improv groups for bright young performers, especially those who could write sketches and create characters.

Even though the search would prove to be successful
, Saturday Night Live
still faced a future that was anything but certain. For the first time in its history, the show was renewed for only thirteen weeks, not a full twenty-week season.

BRAD GREY,
Manager:

I thought Dana Carvey was really special, and I wanted Lorne to see him. We all went to the Comedy Store — Bernie, myself, Cher, and Lorne. It turned out to be one of those silly circumstances where the moment Dana went onstage, Lorne had to go to the men’s room. So I was sitting there and I knew that Dana would just kill, which he did. And just as he was finishing, Lorne returned from the men’s room. So Dana didn’t get the show then; we waited until the next go-round.

DANA CARVEY,
Cast Member:

I’d auditioned twice before. This time, I went on at midnight at the Comedy Store, after Sam Kinison. I always had my own equivalency of the dumb blonde in my career, especially back then. I really looked like an innocent midwestern guy with blonde bangs, I just didn’t look like a comedian, and it kind of threw people sometimes. But this guy had a little club on the West Side and Lorne saw me there. Rosie O’Donnell was headlining, and she let me come in and do forty minutes before her. And Lorne showed up with Brandon Tartikoff and Cher — just so we would be a little more nervous. And that’s where I got the show.

My wife didn’t even move out to New York. I said, “This will probably fail.” I went out there early because Lorne said, “You could come out and, you know, just hang.” So I came out in August and Lorne turns to me and says, “Paul and Linda are coming over tonight.” I said, “Excuse me?” “Oh — Paul. McCartney. Over here.” And literally the blood drained from my face. And I went into a room that Lorne called “Jack’s Room” because it’s where Nicholson would stay, and I called my friends back in the Bay Area and said, “I’m going to meet Paul McCartney tonight.” And Paul and Linda came over for four nights in a row and we listened to demo tracks, we heard all about them. Being a Beatle fanatic, that experience was just absolutely mind-blowing.

TERRY TURNER,
Writer:

When I got onto the show, there was a sense that this show is over. I remember sitting in a restaurant with my father-in-law in New York, and he said, “My son-in-law here works on
Saturday Night.
” And the waiter said, “God, I thought that thing was off the air. It’s been bad for so long.”

VICTORIA JACKSON,
Cast Member:

I lived in L.A., had my own house, and I had already been on a canceled series, and let me see, I remember I was pregnant in ’85 with my first baby. I was twenty-six years old. I was doing a commercial in the desert for a truck company, and I was nauseous and everything and I didn’t want them to know I was pregnant, because they might fire me, but I wanted the money ’cause I was the breadwinner since my husband never worked. And so I came back to L.A. from that commercial, and I heard someone say my name was on a list at the Improv to audition for
Saturday Night Live
and why wasn’t I there? And I was like, “Huh?!” Nobody told me about that. William Morris was my agent, but nobody told me that there was even an audition.

Here’s the cut to the chase: I had the baby. I did
The Pick-Up Artist.
And all of a sudden the phone rings in the summer of ’86. And my baby’s three months old and it was someone from
Saturday Night Live
, and they said, “Do you want to audition for
Saturday Night Live
tomorrow?” And it didn’t even go through my agent. It didn’t go through anyone I knew. It was like they called my home directly. I have no idea how they got my phone number. It’s really mysterious. And I said, “Oh. Sure.” And then they said, “There’ll be a plane ticket waiting for you at LAX tomorrow morning at eight A.M. to come to New York and audition.” And they said to be sure and bring all your characters. And I said okay. So I hung up. And I was like, “I don’t have any characters!” I never was in the Groundlings and I never took improv and, you know, basically the way I got on Johnny Carson was I had a six-minute stand-up comedy act that was mostly doing a hand-stand while reciting poetry.

So I hung up the phone. I told my husband, “I’m going to New York tomorrow to audition for
SNL
and they said bring your characters.” And I looked at him like bewildered, you know. I knew about
SNL
and Belushi just ’cause you know it as part of culture, but when I grew up we didn’t have a TV, and then I was in college and I didn’t have one, and then I was trying to get on TV so I was always busy. So then I flew to New York. I brought my ukulele and my handstand; the handstand traveled with me. And I got on the plane and I thought, “Now if they lose my ukulele, I have no audition,” because, you know, I don’t have characters. And they lost my ukulele.

So then I got picked up and they took me to a hotel where the other girls who were against me were staying. There were about ten other girls from Canada and Chicago. The next day they marched us all down the street in a row, like ducks, past that big guy Atlas holding the world. I wore my French maid costume from when I was a cigarette girl, because that’s when I started doing the stand-up thing. I was really nervous.

We were all in the hallway waiting and then everyone was whispering that one of the girls had done a strip routine for her audition. And that’s a really dumb idea, I think, because you can’t really be naked on NBC, you know? Even if you look good naked, it’s not going to help a comedy program. So then I did my little stand-up comedy act. I guess I had about ten minutes. I sang my songs and did my handstand poetry, and Lorne was watching with about three Lornettes. You know, they’re called the Lornettes, the girls who work for Lorne and make sure he has plenty of popcorn. The bravest cast members would eat some of Lorne’s popcorn but I was scared to. But one time I did and like one kernel fell on the floor and one of the Lornettes gave me a dirty look. They’re not supposed to let any of them fall on the floor, you see.

So I did my audition and then they said, “Oh, spend the night. Lorne wants to see you tomorrow, but he doesn’t come in until four
P.M.
because he wakes up late and starts the workday at three
P.M.
”

Then he met with me and he said, “Well, you — um — I loved your audition. It was really funny, but I don’t know if you’re really strong in character.” And I said, “Oh — well, I could talk like this and be British.” And he goes, “Uh-huh, yeah.” I go, “I could talk like
this
and that’s a character.” And he goes, “Uh, yeah.” And he goes, “Well, like if I wanted you to be Annie Hall, you know?” And I said, “Well, then I would just wear men’s clothing and kind of look at the ground a lot.” And he goes, “Well, what if I wanted you to be — a housewife in the Midwest?” And I said, “Well, I
am
a housewife.” So then I went home and I thought, “Oh man, I was so close, but he’s not going to pick me.”

So I was supposed to be on Carson again in two weeks, and I thought, “Hey, what if I continue my audition on national TV? That would really impress Lorne.” So I asked
The Tonight Show
and they said, “Sure, but just don’t say the name of the show.” So I got all these tapes of people and tried to imitate them — like Tina Turner and Teri Garr and stuff. But it wasn’t my strong point, you know. So I thought, well, if I just try to do the impression and people know who I’m doing and they laugh — well, all your goal is, is to make laughter, so it doesn’t matter how you get there. So I sat next to Johnny Carson and I told him I was auditioning for a show and I had to do characters and I said, “Let me do them for you, and if you can guess who I’m doing, then I’m doing it good, right?” He goes, okay. So I went, “Oh, oh, Archie! I’m sor-ree!” And he goes, “Edith Bunker.” And I go, yeah. And the audience claps. And I go, “I don’t know why I’m here. Just go to a commercial. I don’t have anything to say. I don’t know why I’m here.” And Johnny says, “Teri Garr!” And I go, yeah. And then I went, “What’s love got to do, got to do with it.” And I danced, you know. And he goes, “Tina Turner.” And I go, yeah. And so then I was smoking a cigarette. And he goes, “I don’t know, Bette Davis?” And I go, no. And he goes, “Who is it?” And I go, “I made her up.” And then Johnny laughed so hard. The audience laughed too. And then he goes, “If you made it up, how am I supposed to guess who it is?” And I go, “Oh, I don’t know. I’m supposed to make up characters in this show, you know.”

So then my manager at the time took the video of that show to Lorne’s L.A. hotel in case he wasn’t watching that night. And then, about a week later, they called me at home again. It was ten o’clock on a Sunday night. And she goes, “Congratulations. You’re in the cast of
Saturday Night Live.
” And I was like, “Oh, thank you.” And she goes, “There will be a ticket waiting for you at LAX in the morning, and we’re putting you in a hotel until we find you an apartment.” I was like, “Oh, thank you.” So I hung up the phone and then I screamed really loud. Because I had been trying to act real cool in front of her. And then my baby woke up and started crying, and then my ex-husband — he doesn’t handle pressure very well — he threw up. On the bed.

TERRY TURNER:

When we got there, Bonnie and I had been married for a bit. One thing good about us is we’ve always worked together, and she could shore me up and I could shore her up, and we could yell at each other too. We both went in for therapy during the show. So that might have helped. Wait — I can’t believe I just said that, that
Saturday Night
drove us both to therapy. I’d never thought about it until now.

BOB ODENKIRK,
Writer:

They hired Robert Smigel as writer, and then while Robert wrote I would sort of work with him on the phone every week and pitch him ideas and help him with his ideas. And meanwhile I was continuing to write sketches in Chicago, and I would mail those in to Robert and he’d pass them around the office, and sometimes they would do a joke of mine on “Weekend Update.” I think there was maybe even one sketch that I might have written that was done. And so people were kind of familiar with my work and I came in and did an interview the following year, which was Robert’s second year, and then I was hired a few months later. I interviewed with Lorne, which was extremely weird. I basically had a huge chip on my shoulder, and mix that in with Lorne’s traditional intimidation and it’s not good. I didn’t respond to the way he likes to approach young performers and set himself up as some kind of very distant, strange Comedy God.

KEVIN NEALON,
Cast Member:

When Aykroyd and those guys were on — the original years — I moved out to California to do stand-up, so I was always out there in the clubs when the show was on and didn’t get to see it that much. I never really thought that was my gig. I didn’t do characters or impressions. My stand-up was basically off-the-wall, absurd. I was influenced by Andy Kaufman and Albert Brooks and Steve Martin, you know.

The clubs in 1975 were really tough. Audiences were really brash and heckling, and they’re all crammed in these little rooms, and the comics were just tough New York guys, and there was a lot of profanity and heckling going on. And I remember seeing Larry David on stage one night follow some heckler right out into the street and slug it out with him. So I thought California would be a good place.